World War I

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World War I

• Chapter 24

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Woodrow Wilson and Moral Diplomacy

• Moral (Missionary) diplomacyU.S. as a beacon of
  freedom
• We are chosen, and prominently chosen, to show
  the way to the nations of the world how they
  shall walk in the paths of liberty
• Wilson assumed Anglo-American superiority
• Paternalism similar to slave masters
• Willing to spread western-style democracy and
  Christian morality through force
• Also had a practical sideU.S. needed markets
  also exported capitalism
• Exporting American democracy and capitalism would
  promote stability and progress throughout the
  world

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Intervention in Mexico

• Mexican Revolution in 1910
• Pancho Villa started to make raids into the U.S.
  to kill 37 Americans
• Wilson sent General Pershing and 6,000 troops
  into Mexico to find Villa.
• Searched for 2 years but never found Villa but
  the expedition poisoned Mexican-American
  relations for the next 30 years.

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Woodrow Wilson and Moral Diplomacy Caribbean

• American marines helped put down disorders
• Nicaragua (until 1933), Cuba (until 1933) Haiti
  (until 1934), and the Dominican Republic (until
  1924).

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The Road to War

• Countries in Europe had become war machines
  linked to one another through a web of diplomatic
  alliances---the chaos just needed to be set in
  order
• Assassination of Austrian archduke Franz
  Ferdinand in 1914
• Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia and Russia began
  to mobilize.
• The Schlieffen Plan
• German plan to avoid defeat from Russia by taking
  out France first and then fight Russians.

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The European System of Alliance
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Stalemate

• Everyone believed that it would be a short war (6
  weeks)
• New military technology
• Machine guns, aerial bombing, poison gas, flame
  throwers, land mines, armored tanks.
• Trench warfare and stalemate
• Defense was as strong or stronger than offense
• Military tactics had not kept up with military
  technology.

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Americas Initial Reaction

• Wilson urged Americans to be neutral true
  neutrality impossible
• Many immigrants for the Central Powers Irish
  German
• Old-line Americans for the Allies most high
  government officials were pro-British
• Role of propaganda
• Nearly all news from the battlefronts had to
  clear through London.
• Neutral but Not Impartial
• Financial assistance
• 2 billion to Allies
• 27 million to Germany

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American Neutrality Strained

• Freedom of the seas
• British ordered ships carrying German goods via
  neutral ports to be stopped.
• German submarine warfare
• Germans declared a war zone around the British
  Isles and threatened to sink any ships there.
• Lusitania sunk
• Among 1,198 dead were 128 Americans.
• America protested through a series of notes
  demanding Germany stop such actions and pay
  reparations Sussex pledge
• Unwilling to risk war, Secretary of State William
  Jennings Bryan resigned.

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The Debate over Preparedness

• Sinking of the Lusitania contributed to demands
  for a stronger army and navy
• Wilsons war preparation plans announced
• National Defense Act
• Doubled the regular army and authorized a
  National Guard.
• Naval Construction Act
• Authorized up to 600 million for 3-year program
  of enlargement.
• Revenue Act of 1916
• Raised money to pay for war preparations.

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Peace, Preparedness, and the Election of 1916

• Wilson (Dem) against Charles Evans Hughes (Rep)
• Wilson campaigned on peace platformHe kept us
  out of war

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Wilsons Final Peace Offensive

• Wilson asked each side to state its war aims
• Germany announced its new policy of unrestricted
  submarine warfare.
• Wilson broke diplomatic relations with Germany.
• The Zimmermann Telegram
• Britain had intercepted and decoded a message
  from German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmermann
  to his minister in Mexico.
• Suggested a German/Mexican alliance if U.S.
  enters war
• A revolution overthrew Russias czarist
  government and created a Russian Republic
  (democracy)
• illusion shattered in November 1917 when
  Bolsheviks seized power.

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Americas Entryinto the War

• Declaration of warApril 2, 1917
• Americas early role in the war
• Liberty Loan Act
• Helped finance British and French war efforts
• Token army of about 14,500 men under John J.
  Pershing sent to France
• Selective Service Act
• Training of soldiers at military camps
• Only 2 million Am. would cross Atlantic

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Home Front

• Regulation of industry and the economy
• Food and Fuel administrations
• Taught Americans to plant victory gardens and
  to use leftovers wisely.
• War Industries Board
• Labor
• African Americans and Mexican immigrants migrated
  North
• Women entered the workforcemostly young, single

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Mobilizing Public Opinion

• Committee on Public Information promoted 100
  Americanism distrusted all aliens, radicals,
  pacifists, and dissenters. German Americans were
  easy targets.
• In Iowa the governor made it a crime to speak
  German in public
• Hamburgers were renamed Salisbury steak
• German measles, liberty measles
• German stopped being taught in school
• When a mob outside of St. Louis lynched a
  naturalized German American who had tried to
  enlist in the navy, a jury found the leaders not
  guilty

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Civil Liberties

• Public opinion, aroused to promote war, turned to
  Americanism and witch-hunting
• Espionage and Sedition Acts- criticism of
  government leaders or war policies was a crime.
• Over 1,500 prosecutions with more than 1,000
  convictions.
• In Schenck v. United States, Supreme Court upheld
  acts.

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The Decisive Power

• Until 1918, American troops
  played only a token role.
• By November Germany was
  retreating all along the front.
• Bolshevik revolution in Russia
• Russians sign separate peace with Germans (Treaty
  of Brest-Litovsk)
• Allies send troops (8,000 Am) to support Whites
  against Reds in RussiaOrigin of the Cold War?
• The Fourteen Points
• Open diplomacy, Freedom of the seas, National
  self-determination, league of nations, etc.
• Armistice signed November 11, 1918

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Wilsons Fight for Peace

• Wilsons domestic strength was declining
• Democrats lose in the election of 1918 Rep.
  take House Senate.
• Wilson failed to invite any Republicans to assist
  in the negotiations.
• The negotiations in Paris
• The League of Nations
• Treaty of Versailles
• France pushed for several harsh measures against
  Germany Territorial concessions Reparations

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Wilsons Fight for the Treaty

• Opposition in the Senate
• The Irreconcilables
• Wilson took his case to the American people
• Delivered 32 addresses in 22 days
• Suffered stroke on October 2
• Senate did not ratify Versailles Treaty.
• The official end of the war came by joint
  resolution of Congress after Wilson left office.

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Effects of the War at Home

• Progressivism ends (reform zeal channeled into
  war effort)
• Increased democracy (women get to vote) 1920
  19th Amendment
• Order and efficiency in economy (Industry boards)
• Workersmigration improved working conditions
  (8hr work day)
• Morality and Patriotism
• laws against prostitution (disease and troops)
• Prohibition
• 100 Americanism

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United States World Status

• Not isolation but hesitant to provide world
  leadership
• Strongest economic power in the world/not
  strongest military power
• 1914debtor nation (owed 3 million to other
  countries)
• 1918creditor nation (world owed U.S. 13 billion)

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The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919 (Spanish flu)

• Pandemic killed over 22 million people worldwide
• Twice the number that died in World War I
• 5 times the number of Americans that died in
  World War I (500,000 deaths)
• You were fined for spitting on the sidewalk or
  sneezing without a handkerchief
• People began wearing surgical masks to work
• Public facilities were closed (phone booths,
  theaters, churches)
• 1 in 4 Americans contracted the illness
• No disease, plague, war, famine, or natural
  catastrophe in world history had killed so many
  people in such a short time.

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Other Problems

• Economic transition and labor unrest
• Racial frictionviolent race riots in 191
• The Red Scare
• Directed against Socialists and Communists
• Fear of a social revolution (like Russias)
• Most violence was the work of the lunatic fringe,
  but many Americans saw it all as Bolshevism
• Role of Palmer, attorney-general, in promoting
  Red Scare
• Palmer raids
• The Red Scare began to evaporate by the summer of
  1920

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Nativism

• Fear of anything foreign heightened by increased
  immigration after 1919
• Immigration was restricted
• East Asian immigration stopped
• Quota system set to keep country just like it was
  (Ex. 2 percent in 1890 census) Bias toward old
  immigrants
• Coolidge--- America must be kept American
• Left the door open for Mexicans, Puerto Ricans,
  and Cubans
• Klan resurfaces
• Devoted to 100 Americanism
• Targets blacks, Roman Catholics, Jews, and
  immigrants

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Significant Events
? 1901 Hay-Paunceforte treaty
? 1902 Platt Amendment ratified
? 1904 Roosevelt Corollary to Monroe Doctrine
? 1907 Great White Fleet embarks on world tour
? 1911 Mexican Revolution erupts
? 1914 World War I begins
? 1915 Lusitania torpedoed
? 1916 General John J. Pershing invades Mexico
? 1917 Zimmermann telegram released
? 1918 Wilsons Fourteen points for peace
? 1919 Paris Peace Conference Senate rejects
Treaty of Versailles